Health

Grindr is now disallowing third parties from viewing and storing the HIV information of users.

The move comes after leaks were found in their relationship with companies Apptimize and Localytics, according to Gay Star News. Swedish TV show “Plus Granskar” found that the cell phone and GPS data of individual users could be accessed.

Grindr initially defended their relationship with Apptimize and Localytics before changing their position.

“I understand the news cycle right now is very focused on these issues,” Grindr’s security chief Bryce Case said to Axios. “[But] I think what’s happened to Grindr is, unfairly, we’ve been singled out.”

Data experts said that the information could be more vulnerable to hackers when shared with a third party.

“Even if Grindr has a good contract with the third parties saying they can’t do anything with that info, that’s still another place that that highly sensitive health information is located,” Cooper Quintin, a senior staff technologist and security researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said to BuzzFeed News.

“If somebody with malicious intent wanted to get that information, now instead of there being one place for that — which is Grindr — there are three places for that information to potentially become public.”